Our building project began 12 years ago, when we established a building
fund and startedlooking for a location.
For a few years in the '90's, the parish income allowed us to grow the building
fund rapidly, and donations to date total approximately $110,000. The total
cost of our basic project will be approximately $270,000. We have secured a
loan for $160,000 to cover the remaining costs. We will need to raise at
least an additional $28,000 to pay for parking, landscaping, irrigation, and
other requirements the city has told us must be fulfilled before we obtain an
occupancy permit. In time, we plan to have an iconostasis built and icons
painted, most likely from local Orthodox Christians.

A building committee, led by a licensed engineer and a registered
professional land surveyor, laid out the criteria for a viable land purchase,
and we spent many years looking for a good piece of real estate in the Dallas
area. In the mid-1990's, we even looked at properties in Arlington and Fort
Worth. After a long and difficult search, we decided in the fall of 2006 that
the City of McKinney would provide us the best opportunity to find a suitable
piece of land within our price range. In April of 2007, we purchased a plot of
land in historic downtown McKinney, though we did not yet have the means to
build and were undecided about whether this was the best location.

As time went on, it became clearer that building in McKinney is our best
option. We will be the only Orthodox church within 15 miles, in a growing and
vibrant community. When you look at a map of churches in the area
(URL), there is a “hole” in McKinney.
We feel that we are helping the DFW community best by locating
there.

Once we made up our minds to build a temple on our land, we began to look for a
lender, and we had a lot of trouble getting anyone to believe in us. The large national banks did not take us
seriously, but we found a friend in a local bank whose vision is to build
up the community in which they live and do business. Independent Bank (https://www.independent-bank.com/index.html)
has believed in us, and we have a superb working relationship with them. When
other banks said no, they found a way to say yes.

This has been a long and difficult journey, and the turning point for us
was when we began to really apply ourselves to prayer. It is almost a
cliché to say that we should pray about something, and we certainly did,
but things really changed after we established a regular weekday liturgy in
which we pray for all of our parishioners by name during in the Augmented
Ectenia. We did not specifically pray for a new temple or land, but instead,
have regularly, each Wednesday, served the
liturgy and asked God’s mercy for everyone in our flock. This additional
weekday liturgy is the most important turning point in our chronology. We have
since added a weekly Molieben for the parish, served at the construction
site.

Timeline

1994

Deacon Seraphim Holland becomes a resident of Texas, on the very day of
the glorification of St John Maximovitch. Fr Seraphim had been asked by Bishop
Hilarion (now our Metropolitan) to come to Texas to become the pastor of a
small mission in Dallas that had been faithfully holding reader’s
services. We immediately began holding reader’s vigils on Saturday night,
with typica and a meal on Sunday.

1995

Fr Seraphim ordained to the priesthood (March 6/19, the second
Sunday of Great Lent).

1997

Building
Fund established. Search for a land or a suitable property
begun.

2007

Land purchased in McKinney. There is a long lapse in years between
this and the previous entry, but there was really a lot going on. We looked at
zillions of properties in zillions of places all over the Metroplex. Nothing
was suitable. Finally, we found something, almost on a whim, in McKinney, and
we were off and running (uphill).

January, 2008

The week after Nativity, we began our weekly weekday liturgies.
This was made possible because Fr Seraphim no longer was working fulltime. The
highlight of this liturgy is that we pray by name for everyone in the parish
during the Augmented Ectenia.

February, 2008

Dissatisfied with the original design, which had no
provision for a church hall, we selected our Architect /Designer:

Attempts to get a building loan begun. During discussion with
Independent Bank, our
eventual lender, it became apparent that we needed to account for a more
substantial regular income. We instituted our first call for pledges, and the
parish responded extremely well, increasing our income by fifty percent, which
gave us enough income for the bank to consider us.

September, 2008

Loan approved.and building plans
submitted to the city of McKinney for approval.

July, 2009

Building permit obtained.

Construction begun.

August 2009

Letter sent appealing for benefactors: We wish to raise, if it be God’s will,
$40,000 by asking 400 benefactors to give us alms of $100 or more each. We want
to give our benefactors something back for their alms. Like the Apostle Peter,
“Gold and silver have (we) none”, but we offer you our perpetual
prayer.…..